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I live in the UK too, and yes they became law as of November 2013 I think it was.

Even if children and teenagers do not violently act out the things they see in games, I have experienced many cases of make-believe playing in children, where they pretend to shoot their friends, and there was an issue in the 1990s when WWE (then WWF) was big, and children would wrestle eachother, and end up getting hurt quite badly in some cases. An issue with this is that as a female who had very little interest in violent/ mature games until I was about 18, my opinion is affected by this. That’s what makes this an opinion piece though.

You are right, there is no conclusive proof that the shooters I mentioned were responding to their experiences with video games, but there is no one specific reason that was conclusively proven to cause these reactions. Obviously the events were the result of many factors in the persons life, and that is why the majority of people do not react in these ways, because they do not have the combination of issues that the teenagers and children who act violently had.

Whilst games may not increase a child’s aggressiveness, I find it unlikely that if a child was going to commit a shooting and they had never played violent video games or been exposed to overly mature content that they would know how to use a gun or where to get one. That knowledge of how to use a gun (Obvioulsy games dont do this particularly realistically) and what shooting someone will look like is not something we are born with.

The PEGI rating does work on ages, so in the UK and some parts of the EU they have the 18+ stickers etc, as well as the various content icons for drugs and violence and so on. Unfortunately these are still ignored, making it more a lack of care by the parents and people who buy the games rather than a flawed system.

That is very true. Due to the increase in available gaming formats, and the advances in technology which has allowed developers to create more complex stories and more detailed design, video games have expanded from their child aimed roots.

Thank you, I can’t say I thought it would turn out to be such a controversial topic when I was writing it. I think the reason organisations use the age ratings, is because it is, as you say, difficult to define maturity in every child, so choose an age where by most children would in blanket terms be mature enough to play a certain type of game. I agree with you, they should be used and taken into account, not taken to either extremity and ignored completely, or taken as law.

Yes it is a simulation, so it is based on the real thing, so things people see in games that could be inappropriate for children are to a certain extent are how they are in real life, which in my opinion is wrong for them to see in any form. For the most part it is used for escapism, but the very small minority of people take it further with terrible events are a result, and that is why I think people should at least acknowledge the age rating on a game rather than ignore it, because it acts as a safe guard for the small minority who would end up taking a games events out of fantasy from seeing the inappropriate material.

Judging by the amount of discussion on this, I think people do care about the issue. As I have said it is largely based on your parents beliefs on it and your interests as a child, but the ratings on any game are important, especially for parents who are unsure whether to get their child a certain game rather than those who don’t care about the ratings to begin with.